In the past, voice mail systems provided a convenient way of asking someone to return a missed call. Today, perhaps due to the expectations brought about by its counterpart email system, the voice mail system has become more than a way of communicating brief “return-call” messages with others. For many, voice mail systems have become an extension of their other electronic tools. For example, many use their voice mail systems like a data storage system to store important voice messages, much like one would store an email for a longer period of time or a memorandum in a paper-based file.
Many legacy voice mail systems, however, are ill equipped to provide anything more than very short-term data storage. In fact, legacy voice mail systems often have relatively small storage capabilities that were designed for the more elementary purposes of days past. As companies add personnel, these older systems necessarily reduce the number of messages that may be stored for each employee. Moreover, these legacy systems often are impossible or too expensive to upgrade. As a result, a caller often will be frustrated by hearing the dead end message “I'm sorry mailbox 4321 is full, and unable to receive additional messages.” The owner of the mailbox, also may be frustrated by being forced to delete certain voice mail messages that should continue to be stored, or perhaps to have the voice mail message manually typed into text for storage on a computer medium.
In addition to its limited storage capabilities, legacy voice mail systems do not provide the ability to intelligently categorize, sort, and/or search the stored messages (e.g., by titles, times, types, parties) like its email counterpart. Again, in part because voice mail systems are being used for purposes beyond their originally intended purposes, they do not provide a means of intelligently interacting with the data that they capture. For example, although most traditional voice mail systems are capable of capturing the name and number of the calling party, the time and date of the incoming call, and the duration of the voice mail message, none of these attributes are available for anything other than a simple audible report to the voice mail user. Yet, sorting and searching these attributes are critical in permitting the data captured by the voice mail system to be useful in today's communications environment. Although newer voice mail systems may provide some of these capabilities, many are not willing to undergo the aggravation and expense of a wholesale transfer to these newer systems, especially organizations with a large number of users.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.